


What Families Do

by MajorWolfe



Category: Holby City
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorWolfe/pseuds/MajorWolfe
Summary: A oneshot set after 'For You May Be the Next to Die'





	What Families Do

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with this but I wanted to get it finished before tomorrow's episode so here you go. My take on what happened after the shift where Jasmine died. Feedback would be much appreciated!

Bernie sighed at the knock on the office door and glanced up at the clock, it was almost midnight, and she assumed that the person patiently waiting for her permission to enter the office was either Ric or Henrik trying to convince her to go home, but pottering around her empty flat right now was the least appealing thing she could think of, she reasoned with herself that she’d get a few hours in the on call room if she could ever rid her brain of the image of Jasmine’s lifeless body laid out on the operating table, of the look on Jac's face, the single nod as she agreed that nothing more could be done to save her sister before she turned and left. Another tap at the door brought her back to the present, and she swiped her thumbs under her eyes to wipe at the stray tears she hadn’t held back and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to tame the waves that seemed more unruly than usual due to the endless times her fingers had been dragged through them as she attempted to make sense of the evening’s events.

She took a deep breath to compose herself before straightening up in her chair, picking up a pen and the nearest patient file to make it look like she’d been working, “come in.”

She didn’t look up, not wanting to make eye contact, not trusting her stiff upper lip to stay in place.  She kept her eyes on the file, the words swimming before her as she heard a dull thud, followed moments later by a single word murmured so quietly Bernie couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t imagined it, “Mum.”

Her head snapped upwards, tears filling her eyes again as she saw her son stood in the doorway, a holdall on the floor by his feet, “Cam” she whispered, “what are you doing here?”

“Morven called me and told me what happened, I thought you might need a friendly face with Serena being away.”

“Is Morven okay?” Bernie shook her head, “that’s a stupid question, of course she isn’t.”

“She said she was going to stay with someone called Dom tonight?” Cameron shrugged, “I said I’d go and see her tomorrow.”

Bernie nodded and gestured to her phone on the desk, “I keep thinking about letting Serena know” she whispered, “but she said some horrible things to Jasmine after Elinor died, I don’t want her thinking that this is somehow her fault, I don’t want to push her back to where she was before.”

“I think she’d want to know” Cameron said softly, “but not now, now I think we need to get you home, get you something to eat and then try and sleep, you can talk to Serena in the morning, or I’ll call her for you,” He’d bumped into Hanssen on his way onto the ward, the CEO informing Cameron that he wasn’t expecting Bernie in for her shift in the morning, he knew that no matter how hard Bernie tried to hide it, losing Jasmine had hit her hard.

Bernie nodded, too tired to argue with her son, “I need to get changed.”

“Okay” Cameron nodded, “I’ll wait here for you.”

Bernie slowly pushed herself to her feet, the simple action feeling like it took all her energy, “I won’t be long.”

Cameron took a long look at his mother, he’d never seen her looking so tired and worn out, not even when she’d been recovering from major surgery, “Mum” he said softly. Bernie said nothing but stopped, turning to face her son, surprised when he pulled her into a tight hug, “I love you.”

Bernie felt herself welling up again as she returned the hug, “I love you too Cameron” she whispered.

Cameron waited for Bernie to change before they left the hospital in silence, Bernie not completely surprised when her son took her car key from her hand just seconds after she’d retrieved it from her handbag. They drove in silence, Cameron only speaking once he’d parked outside a 24 hour supermarket, “I won’t be a minute.”

“What are we doing here?” Bernie asked.

“I’m guessing you haven’t eaten since at least lunch time, if you even had lunch…” Bernie’s silence answered for her, “and as I assume you’re living off takeaways, that will all be closed by now, I’m going to get us something to eat” he gently squeezed Bernie’s hand before leaving the car and jogging inside.

He returned a few minutes later with two frozen pizzas, throwing them into the back of Bernie’s car as he got in, “I’m proud of you” Bernie whispered, not looking up at her son, “I hope you know that.”

“For buying two pizzas?” Cameron tried to lighten the mood before reaching out to squeeze Bernie’s hand again as he waited at a red light, “I know you are Mum, and despite what you might think, Charlotte knows it too.”

A familiar silence filled the car for the rest of the drive home and as Cameron made his way into the kitchen to put the pizzas in the oven, Bernie made her way into the living room and flopped down onto the sofa, holding her head in her hands.  She couldn’t believe it, everything seemed so surreal, like a bad dream that she’d wake up from any minute now, Jasmine was so young, had so much potential that Bernie was struggling to accept that she wouldn’t see her when she walked onto the ward in the morning. She found herself thinking back to her time in the army, to all the men Jasmine’s age that she’d lost, soldiers younger than Jasmine, but that had seemed different somehow, as callous as it seemed, they’d all known the risks when they’d signed up, Jasmine… all she’d wanted to do was help people, she wasn’t on the front line fighting for queen and country, she was a doctor, she should have been safe at work.

Jasmine had been so happy, her personality bubbling over to infect those around her, she’d been through so much in the short time since she’d arrived at Holby but she’d bounded back, every, single, time, determined to make it, determined to prove herself.  Bernie had bonded with Jasmine over the past few weeks, taken her under her wing since Serena had left and she’d been surprised at just how quickly she seemed to have found her feet in the trauma unit, sure she’d made mistakes, but so did every junior doctor, she could have learnt from them, she could have grown into a brilliant doctor but now she was gone, and Bernie couldn’t help but feel like it was her fault.

She glanced up when she saw Cameron walk into the living room, two glasses and a bottle of whiskey in his hand, “thanks” she mumbled as he poured out two generous measures, handing her one of the glasses and taking the other for himself.

Cameron smiled sadly, “is there anything I can do?” he asked, “the pizza won’t be long, I got you ham and pineapple.”

Bernie shook her head, “thanks for the pizza, I erm, I’m not really hungry though.”

“No, you’re probably not, but you need to eat.”  Bernie went to protest but Cameron spoke first, “did you get time for lunch?” Bernie shook her head, “and let me guess, you were running late this morning and you didn’t have time for breakfast?” Bernie’s silence told him everything, “then you need to eat something Mum.”

Bernie said nothing, not having the energy to argue, she simply knocked back the whiskey in her glass before reaching for the bottle to pour herself another.  They sat in silence until the oven timer sounded and Cameron excused himself to get the pizzas, Bernie’s confidence boosted by the whiskey she took out her phone, closing her eyes as she dialed Serena’s number before she could change her mind.

“Hi, you’ve reached Serena Campbell…” Bernie felt tears pricking at her eyes as she heard Serena’s voice, glad that her call had gone to voicemail, not sure she could hold herself together long enough to speak to Serena if she’d have answered the phone.

“Serena” Bernie took a deep breath, “it’s me, I erm, I know we agreed that contact would be on your terms but erm, something, something happened tonight and I wanted you to hear it from me.  I, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there was an, an incident, I don’t know what happened exactly but an F1 found Jasmine bleeding out in a corridor down by the labs, there erm, there was a scalpel lodged in her side” Bernie tried to focus on the facts, tried to convince herself that this was just any other trauma case, “he bought her to AAU but it took us a while to get her into theatre, she’d lost a lot of blood but she was fighting us, didn’t stop until Jac arrived. We tried Serena” Bernie’s voice cracked as a tear rolled down her cheek, “Ric and I, we were in theatre with her for six hours but I couldn’t save her.  I’m sorry Serena, I’m so so sorry.”

“Mum” Cameron walked over with a plate in each hand having waited in the doorway for Bernie to finish on the phone, “you know it wasn’t your fault?” he asked as he put the pizzas down on the coffee table, pepperoni for him, ham and mushroom for Bernie, he’d noticed Bernie had mentioned both herself and Ric operating but had placed the blame for not saving Jasmine purely on herself, “you weren’t the only surgeon operating and you didn’t cause her injuries, you did all you could Mum, I know you wouldn’t have stopped unless you’d done all you could.”

“I’m a trauma surgeon, Ric isn’t, Jasmine had suffered a major abdominal trauma, I should have saved her.”

“Oh Mum” Cameron pulled Bernie into a hug as more tears slid down her cheeks, he had lost patients in his short time as a doctor, he couldn’t imagine how many patients his Mum had lost but he couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to have to operate on someone you were so close to, he knew from working there himself that AAU really was like a big family, he couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for his mother to call time of death on one of her colleagues.

“I’m sorry” Bernie pulled back a few moments later, wiping at her eyes, embarrassed at having broken down in front of her son.

“You don’t need to apologise” Cameron reached for a box of tissues and handed them over, “to say you’ve had a shit day is an understatement, I’m not your little boy any more, I’m a grown adult, I know, no matter how hard you try to hide them, that you have emotions, you have bad days, you don’t have to pretend to be unbreakable for me.”

Bernie wiped at her eyes and forced a smile, “when did you grow up?” she asked him.

“It’s happened slowly over the past 26 years” Cameron teased before picking up Bernie’s pizza and passing it to her, “now eat something and then try and get some rest, I bet you’re exhausted.”

“I don’t know if I’ll get much sleep” Bernie admitted as she picked some pineapple off her pizza.

“Well then we’ll put a film on or something” Cameron smiled before taking a bite of his own pizza.

Bernie nodded, “when erm, how long are you staying for?”

Cam shrugged, “until you get sick of me.”

“But your placement” she protested.

“Is less important than you, I’ve dropped out once, I’ll do it a second time if I need to.”

“No, no, you can go back tomorrow, I’ll be fine.”

Cameron laughed, “thanks Mum, I come all the way back from London to see you and you kick me out after one night, but seriously, I was at work when Morven called, my mentor told me to take the rest of the week off and then let him know if I need any more time off.”

Bernie nodded, “I do appreciate it you know, you coming back.”

Cameron smiled and squeezed Bernie’s hand, “don’t go getting all soft on me now!" he teased, “but seriously, I wasn’t going to sit back and let you try and cope with all this on your own, I know you’re the parent, I’m the child yada yada yada, but I’m always here mum, if you need anything all you ever have to do is call.”

Bernie nodded, returning the squeeze to Cameron’s hand, “thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me” Cameron took another bite of his pizza, “it’s what families do.”


End file.
